There is a lot of overlap between everyday language and technical mechanical terminology. This can lead to a lot of confusion when talking about movement.

It is very common for coaches to use language incorrectly when talking about mechanics. For instance, I talked about the misuse of the term "power" in a separate thread.

To be clear, in this thread I am not criticising coaches for this. In many cases it is to a large part harmless - yes from a strict mechanical perspective the wrong word is being used, but coaches and athletes have a mutual understanding of what they mean.

It's always a huge achievement when a student publishes their MSc dissertation in a peer reviewed research journal. This is a celebration of the @StMarys_SandC students who have published their research in the last 2 years. 😃👏👨‍🎓🏋️‍♀️ @YourStMarys@SMUDocCollege

I'm always surprised by how many (experienced) coaches think that the bar is supposed to bang against the thigh/hips during the pull.

Do they really believe it is possible to "knee" the bar upwards? Not to mention that this seems like a pretty painful strategy.

It is another example of people only being able to coach what they can see. In weightlifting, the knees come forwards underneath the bar, and then it pops upwards (due to the athlete jumping). To the untrained eye this can look like the bar being "banged" upwards.

In squatting, most errors are due to the fact that athletes are afraid they are going to fall over.

When we squat, we need to keep the projection of our centre of mass (the arrow in the picture), within our base of support (the pink area in the picture). If the arrow moves outside of our base of support we will fall over.

A common cue is "push the hips back to start the squat". As the athlete pushes their hips back, the projection of the centre of mass (PCOM) moves backwards. When the PCOM reaches the edge of the base of support (BOS), the athlete can't squat any deeper using this strategy.

Biomechanics 101 - understand the distinction between global (relative to the world) and local (relative to the athlete) frames of reference. When people refer to “horizontal” forces they generally mean in the global frame #TheoryOfTheMagicalHorizontalForceMuscle